Author

Abby Levene

Abby Levene is a writer, editor, and podcast producer for Gaia GPS. She's also a professional endurance athlete based in Boulder, Colorado. In her free time you can find her sweating in the mountains by foot, bike, and skis, or at home painting or curled up with a book.

A runner smiles while running down a trail through a burn path.
Gaia GPSHow-To

How to Start Trail Running

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

Photo credit: Ashleigh Thompson

Trail running is like hiking’s high-octane cousin. The two activities accomplish a similar objective: travel along a beautiful singletrack trail, often in the wilderness, on two legs. But by moving lighter and faster, running allows you to cover more territory in less time. And thanks to its sustained aerobic component, running transforms even city parks into rewarding adventures. Whether you want to cover a multi-day backpacking route in one day, efficiently train for a thru-hike, or simply discover a rejuvenating exercise regime, trail running can enhance a hiker’s life.

Professional runner and coach Sandi Nypaver sees how hikers can benefit from adding trail running to their repertoire.

“There’s a lot of beauty in hiking and taking a little more time to see everything around you,” Nypaver says. “But it can also be satisfying and enjoyable to cover more ground and see more views or be able to get more miles of trail time in on days you’re short on time.”

Here’s what you need to know to make the leap.

Hiking vs. Trail Running: Similar but Different

Photo credit: Thomas Woodson

Before you lace up some trail running shoes and hit the trail, it’s useful to keep in mind that trail running differs from hiking. Hikers possess a strong aerobic base, durable joints, and wilderness skills essential to thrive as a trail runner. While hiking and running use the same cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems, the two movements use those systems in different ways.

Walking and running require distinct gaits. Think back to when you started hiking. While you probably didn’t get sore walking around your neighborhood, your whole body might have ached after climbing a mountain. The switch to trail running feels similar. Hiking primarily engages your quads, while trail running uses your glutes, feet, quads, calves, and even biceps.

Running is faster than walking. Your muscles need to contract harder with each step. They also get less time to recover between steps, making you fatigue faster. Plus running is higher impact, placing more stress on muscles, bones, and joints. Running’s added strain on the body increases your chance of injury if you’re not careful, professional runner and coach Sage Canaday warns.

How to Start Trail Running

a runner passes by mountains with a touch of fall color.
Photo credit: Adam Edwards

Pick a Trail
Pick a route that’s on the shorter side when you’re starting out. Just like with hiking, you want be cognizant of the vertical gain—climbing will require more energy and time. Consider dedicating some days to flatter trails, and even gravel roads and bike paths, to work on your running efficiency. Good running form translates from the flats to the mountains. Intersperse flatter days with more climbing days to give your body time to recover. Your calves will be sore at first!
You can, of course, combine hills and flats into one run. In fact, Nypaver suggests picking a trail with rolling hills so you can let the terrain help ease you into the sport.

“You could hike the uphills and then run the downhills, focusing on good form and listening to your feet as they hit the ground to make sure you’re not landing too hard.”

Let the course dictate when to run and when to walk, and you will start to acclimate without even realizing it.

Know Where to Go with Gaia GPS
Just like with hiking, use Gaia GPS to discover trails and routes. Map out a route of your choosing, and look at the elevation profile and trail surfaces to get a sense of how long the run may take. Several maps prove particularly useful:

Gaia Topo Map

Gaia Topo shows trails, paths, and hidden unmaintained roads that are perfect for running. This recently updated map makes it easy to find and plan out routes ahead of time. You can even tap on a trailhead or landmark to find suggested routes in the area.

Best yet, this vector-based map is tiny and fast to download for off-line use. The map takes up very little storage on your phone so you can download huge swaths of land, even your entire state, in minutes.

Nat Geo Trails Illustrated

This gorgeous set of maps provides incredibly detailed data on many trails and national parks across the US. Zoom in to see quick tips written on the map, like fording slippery streams, and how many miles until the next water source. National Geographic Trails Illustrated maps show mileage markers between sections of trail, trailheads, amenities, and parking areas.

Satellite with Labels

Topo maps prove invaluable, but sometimes you need a birds-eye view of the terrain to get a sense of what a place actually looks like. Use this satellite imagery layer to see if a trail winds through the trees or over an open plain, for example. Such information helps you decide if you should bring a visor for the sun, or a jacket for a windswept mountain top.

Gaia Streets

A beauty of trail running is that, contrary to its name, it can be done pretty much anywhere. Don’t be afraid to run on surfaces other than trails. Switching up your routine will only make you better at running. The Gaia Streets layer allows you to navigate urban areas with ease. Find city staircases to practice running hills, discover obscure paths through parks, and map out routes that optimize quiet sidewalks and minimize traffic light stops.

USFS Roads and Trails

This is Gaia GPS’s most frequently updated map layer, so it often contains roads and trails that are not available on any other map. This layer also highlights the surface and condition of the trail or road, so you won’t have to guess if you’ll be running on two-track, single track, pavement or dirt.

USGS Topo

The official map of the US Geological Survey, the USGS Topo quilts together all the USGS quadrangle maps for the contiguous United States. These maps are large-scaled to 1:24,000, bringing the character of the landscape into sharp focus if you’re skilled at reading topographic maps. Check out this article if you need to brush up on your topo map-reading skills.

You can use the web map on gaiagps.com to find routes and trails, and plan your run on the big screen. Log into your Gaia GPS account on your computer, and any routes you map out on the web will automatically synch to your Gaia GPS app. Just make sure you “show” the route on the map in the app.

Tip: download maps for the region you will be running through so that you can still access them if you lose cell service. At the start of your run, start recording your track so that you can easily retrace your steps if needed. Plus recording your track will allow to you visualize your run afterward and to repeat the route again.

Start Short and Easy

Sandi and Sage power hike up a mountain. They both are using trekking poles and are wearing hydration vests.
Sandi Nypaver and Sage Canaday in Colorado’s Sawatch mountains.

Start with short distances to stay healthy. While you may be in incredible shape from hiking, your body still needs ample time to adjust to running. Don’t be afraid to throw in walking or hiking breaks as needed. In fact, the best trail runners in the world still hike steep and technical climbs. Listen to your body when it tells you to walk.

Intersperse running days with rest, hiking, or other cross training days like cycling or swimming. In the beginning, aim for running two to three days a week, with at least one day off in between. This cadence will give your body enough time to recover between sessions, while also providing enough stimulus to allow your body to adapt and improve. After a couple of weeks, you can start working your way up to more runs each week.

Listen to Your Body, Not Your Watch
Try not to worry too much about your pace. Setting an arbitrary pace objective isn’t productive. And the pace you will run on smooth surfaces versus rocks and roots, flat terrain versus hills, will wildly vary. Again, practice listening to your body. As running grows more comfortable, try incorporating some fartlek-style runs. Fartlek, or “speed play” in Swedish, refers to adding unstructured intervals to your run. Pick a landmark down the path and run hard to it, then recover for a few minutes while running easy, and do it again. Mixing up the speed within your runs will help you grow faster and stronger.

Trail Running Gear

General rule of thumb — you need less gear than you think. Here are the essentials:

  • Phone: Download your maps for offline use beforehand so you can navigate as needed. Plus, having a phone on you provides an insurance blanket for emergencies when you have cell service.
  • Trail Shoes: Find a pair of trail shoes that work for you. Everyone’s feet are different, so relying on reviews can only get you so far. “Try on different pairs to see what feel you like and works with your running form,” Canaday recommends. Go to your local running store and test out some options to see what you like. Also consider the terrain you will be running over. The wet, rocky, root-laden trails of the White Mountains require a shoe with more grip and protection than the buttery mountain bike trails of the Marin Headlands. If you anticipate running over a lot of rocks, look for a shoe with a solid rock plate to protect your feet.
  • Waist Belt: Optional, but super useful to hold your cell phone and keys. Items like the Naked Band or Ultimate Direction Utility Belt can hold a surprising amount of things without bouncing or falling off.
  • Anti-Chafe Product: Sweating plus friction leads to painful showers. Prevent chafing with something like Squirrel’s Nut Butter or another anti-chafe product.
  • Traction: If you plan on running through a snowy or icy winter, traction will help save you from slipping. Nano spikes usually suffice for roads. Micro spikes open up a window of possibility for running over snowy, icy trails. Kahtoola and Black Diamond make durable and effective options for both.

Once you graduate to longer runs, especially in the mountains, a few more items prove useful:

  • Hydration Pack: A lightweight, running-specific pack lets you carry fluids, snacks, and additional layers you may need for longer or especially hot outings. Try on a few options, if possible, to see what fits best on you.
  • Soft Flasks: For fluids. These will typically come with a hydration pack.
  • Water Filter: If you know you will pass by running water, consider carrying less water and filling up along the way. To do this, you should invest in a water filter.The Katadyn BeFree is an efficient and effective option.
  • Hiking Poles: If you already love your hiking poles, don’t worry — they still prove useful for big mountain runs.

Apparel
While you can run in whatever you like, you may want to consider investing in a few comfortable, functional pieces of running apparel:

  • Lightweight and wicking shirt: Will keep you cool in the heat and warm in the cold.
  • Shorts: Or tights that allow full range of motion without bogging you down with extra fabric.
  • Socks: While it might seem superfluous, well fitting, wicking socks can make the difference between finishing a run with intact feet or blistered feet.
  • Windbreaker and Gloves: a light windbreaker that folds into itself for easy storage and a light pair of gloves re useful for mountain summits. Canaday points out that while you will stay warmer running than hiking, you may also sweat more. So if the weather changes as it often does in the mountains, having a layer to keep you warm is still important.

Fueling and Hydration
Just like with hiking, you need to properly hydrate and fuel to keep going. “You need a lot more calories and hydration drink mixes than you think!” Canaday says. On longer runs or hot days, consider adding some electrolytes to your water, or bring salt pills. Since you lose both water and electrolytes when you sweat, you need to replace both to keep your body and mind functioning. Eating on the run can prove tricky at first. But the more you practice, the more comfortable it will feel. Experiment with foods to see what your stomach and mind can tolerate. Drink mixes, gels, chews, gummies, and candy bars are a sugary albeit relatively safe place to start. Tail Wind, Skratch Labs, SiS, and Maurten make some of the most tasty and digestible endurance fuels on the market. Peanut butter pretzels provide a savory and relatively digestible sustained source of sustenance. Aim to DTYPC (drink ‘til you pee clear) and consume 200 to 300 calories an hour.

Find a Community

Whether virtual or in-person, finding a group of runners can be an effective way to learn, have fun, and find motivation. Join running groups on Facebook or other social networks to get new route ideas from people in your area and to find running buddies. You can also find local running groups by checking in with your local running store. Nypaver suggests that womxn look into their local Trail Sisters chapter.

Play to Your Hiking Strengths

As a hiker, you’re already strong at walking up hill. Lean into that! Use your trail intuition, and listen to physical and psychological queues to determine when you should slow down, and when you can push a bit harder if you like. Have fun practicing hoping over rocks and roots on the descents. It may feel foreign and slow-going at first, but you improve immensely with practice. And most importantly, remember why you’re out there: to have fun.

“Whenever you’re learning something new, leave the self-judgment at home,” Nypaver says. “Find your inner kid-like joy to help you along.”

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Vasu skis down a narrow couloir.
Gaia GPSOut and Back Podcast

“Ninjasticking” Through the Backcountry with Vasu Sojitra

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

How to listen: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic | Breaker | Castbox

Vasu Sojitra is one of the most accomplished adaptive athletes on Earth. He’s notched first independent adaptive ascents and descents on everything from the Grand Teton in Grand Teton National Park to Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. This winter, he summited Wyoming’s formidable Mount Moran and skied its infamous Skillet Glacier.

He’s done all of this with one leg — as Vasu says,”ninjasticking” with special forearm crutches.

Reducing Vasu to his leg difference, though, doesn’t do him justice. Rather, Vasu has leveraged his disability to cultivate courage, resiliency, and compassion.

“That’s the thing about disability culture — we are one of the most resilient communities on this [expletive] planet, which is awesome to be a part of,” Vasu recounts on Out and Back. “People think we’re fragile. People think you have to tiptoe around our disability. You don’t. We’re still here. We’re still kicking ass and we’re still making sure our voices are heard no matter what our voices are.”

In this episode of Out and Back, Vasu recounts going from feeling like an outsider as a kid growing up in Glastonbury, CT and Gujarat, India, to finding belonging on the ski slopes. As Indian immigrants, Vasu’s parents were not entirely sold on their two sons’ newfound passion — or the price to entry. Adaptive ski equipment is particularly expensive. But Vasu and his brother (and number one supporter) Amir found their way to the bunny slopes of CT, and later the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Appalachians even further north.

At the University of Vermont, Vasu capitalized on his mechanical engineering studies and worked with a team to build a special set of outriggers, or ski crutches, that enable him to access the backcountry. These “ninjasticks” changed the trajectory of his life. Suddenly, Vasu was skiing at and above the level of his two-legged friends. Rather than pursue engineering after college, Vasu applied those problem-solving skills to finding ways to enable others with disabilities to experience the freedom and joy of outdoor recreation, first at Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports and then at Eagle Mount in his new hometown of Bozeman, Montana.

A skier with one leg skis down a slope.

As Vasu racked up accomplishments on ski and foot, he started earning attention from sponsors and media. He became the first athlete with a disability on the North Face’s prestigious athlete team. But the more praise he garnered, the more Vasu strove to highlight and lift up others. Looking at his own life through an intersectional framework, Vasu started noticing how his disability and skin color interact and compound in unique ways. He realized he could advocate for inclusion for both people with disabilities and people of color and others at the margins.

Vasu’s accomplishments on the trails are extraordinary. But his story is really one of finding strength within yourself. He’s on a mission to make the outdoors accessible to all, so everyone can experience the liberation of moving their bodies through the landscape.

As a community organizer and diversity, equity, and inclusion strategist, Vasu is also not afraid to correct and dismantle our preconceptions and biases. But he’s just as willing to learn along with his audience — follow him on Instagram. Read first-hand accounts of Vasu’s adventures on his website, and watch his film Out on the Limb.

Next episode: Meet the Ultimate PCT Trail Angles: Scout and Frodo

Scout and his wife Sandy stand in front of a sign post for the southern terminus of the PCT. They have their arms around each other and are smiling.

Since 2006, thousands of Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers have started their 2,660-mile journey from Barney and Sandy Mann’s suburban San Diego home. The ultimate trail angles, the Manns offer to pick up arriving PCT hikers from San Diego’s airport or train depot, bring them to their five-bedroom house, feed, entertain, and teach them the ways of the trail.

The next morning, the Manns shuttle the hopeful PCT thru-hikers some 60 miles to the Mexico border. With a hug and a smile, they send their new hiking friends off to Canada, rested and well prepared for the miles ahead.

Hosting hikers — sometimes 40 per night — gets expensive and takes a lot of time and energy. Yet the Manns don’t charge a penny for their hospitality. Helping thru-hikers is their joy in life.

Tune in to the next episode of Out and Back for a chat with Barney “Scout” Mann. A triple crown hiker himself, Scout describes how running their famous hiker hostel fueled their own PCT dreams.

Mann discusses the release of his new book Journeys North, about the PCT thru-hike he did with Sandy (trail name Frodo) in 2007. Plus find out what it’s like to hang out in the Manns’ hostel as hikers prepare for the first miles of their PCT trek.

Scout reflects on how the pandemic forced them to close up shop in 2020 and why they decided not to host PCT hikers in 2021. Listen through to the very end to learn whether Scout and Frodo will consider hosting in 2022.

Last episode: Backcountry Fitness

A group of backpackers walk single file along a trail with mountains ahead.

The days are getting longer and warmer — it’s time to gear up for summer adventures!

Personal trainer Billy Gawron of Backcountry Fitness is here to get us in shape. On the last episode of Out and Back, Shanty and Abby picked Billy’s brain about training for hiking, backpacking, and thru-hiking season.


Billy shares the number one thing we should all start working on right now and gives us the key to balancing strength work with endurance training. He breaks down some pervasive myths about training, including if you actually need to train at all.

Billy answers the most pressing hiker questions, like how to train your feet and ankles to withstand long days with a heavy pack, how to prevent pesky and debilitating knee pain, and how to prepare for altitude while at sea level.

If you’re dreaming up some big plans for the summer, you won’t want to miss this episode. In the meantime, check out Backcountry Fitness on the web, where you can find free training plans and can hire Billy as a coach, and follow Backcountry on Instagram for daily training tips.

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A hiker walks over a ridge with a snowcapped peak in the distance.
AdventuresGaia GPS

Record a Track to “Crush it 4 Climate”

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

Whether you cherish skiing the perfect line, hiking up to breathtaking views, or overlanding through enchanting desert planes, we share common ground. We are united in our love of the world around us. And we can come together to protect these places we love to play.

This March, hundreds of thousands of outdoor enthusiasts are joining forces for our planet. We are proud to stand alongside climate change nonprofit Protect Our Winters as it brings recreationists of all types and creeds together to advance non-partisan policies that protect our world today and for future generations. Together, this “Outdoor State” — the symbolic collection of folks from all across the country who love recreating outside — holds collective bargaining power that any individual could never attain.

You can join the Outdoor State by participating in POW’s month-long “Crush It 4 Climate” campaign. The goal is simple: get outside for a chance to win a slew of incredible prizes — including a free Premium Membership from Gaia GPS! From finding new hikes, to navigating in the backcountry, to recording your adventures, Gaia GPS helps people explore and stay safe in the backcountry.

Over here at Gaia GPS, we are joining the “Crush it 4 Climate” campaign by getting outside and recording a track of that activity. Yes, it’s that easy! Here’s how you can join us:

“Crush It 4 Climate”

Five skiers skin up a ski slope.
Lap 2 of 20. Photo: Ramsay De Give

The beauty of the “Crush it 4 Climate” challenge is anyone can participate. There is no one “right way” to “crush it for climate.” Gaia GPS writer and editor Abby Levene (who also happens to be on the POW Athlete Alliance) climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest (29,032 feet) on skis.

On March 10, Abby and a couple other POW athletes set off into the pre-dawn darkness and skinned up Ski Santa Fe. Once they reached the summit, which tops out at over 12,000’, they skied back down and started climbing back up again. They repeated that 20 times, for a total of 15 hours and 40 minutes.

“While skinning up and skiing down a ski resort 20 times is not the same thing as scaling the world’s highest peak, it filled me with wonder over the magnitude of both Everest and earth at large,” Abby says. “When I finally reached the equivalent of the highest point on the planet, I was exhausted and depleted. But I was also filled with immense gratitude and respect. From the backyard to places as far away as Everest, the world is so beautiful and vast. Plus, what a privilege to get to spend the whole day outside doing something I love! In my opinion, there’s no greater motivator to want to help save our home planet than to go play on it.”

You can see Abby’s “Everesting” track here.

Screenshot of Gaia GPS tracks from Abby's "Everesting."
Abby’s track from ski “Everesting.”

You certainly do not need to do something as extreme as Abby! Round up your family for a walk around the neighborhood or go hike that trail that’s been on your bucket list for ages. If you get outside this month, you are taking action for our planet. And while you’re out there, record your activity in Gaia GPS so you can share it with friends and encourage them to get outside, too.

Record a Track in Gaia GPS

Two people look at Gaia on their phone while gazing at mountains in the background.

To record a track of your activity, first you will need to download Gaia GPS onto your phone. When you’re ready to start your adventure, open the app.

Next, tap the “Record” button on the top left of your screen. If you don’t see the “Record” button, you can add it by following these directions. Or you can simply tap the circle with the “+” in the middle (top right of your screen). From the menu that pops up, tap “Record a Track” (first option). You’re ready to hit the trail!

When you’re done with your activity, simply tap the timer on the top left of your screen. Select “Finish Track.” Alternatively, once again press the circle with the “+” in the middle. Hit “Finish Track.”

From here, you’ll be able to view your track, including all the stats like distance traveled, elevation gain, and time elapsed. You can also give your track a name, and make your track visible to the public if you wish.

Create a Free
Gaia GPS Account

Join the Outdoor State

Four skiers stand in the darkness in a line with their headlamps on. They are smiling for the camera.
The calm before 29,032′. Photo: Ramsay De Give

Once you’ve recorded your track, you’re ready to join the Outdoor State! Share your track with your friends and family to encourage them to get outside, too. Then simply click the button below:

Crush It 4 Climate,
Win Prizes

Bonus: we want to see how you are “crushing it for climate!” Share your tracks on social media, along with the hashtag #CrushIt4Climate and tag @GaiaGPS in your post. One more lucky winner will receive a free Premium membership. The Crush It 4 Climate campaign ends on March 31, so get outside over the next week and share those tracks. We look forward to joining you outside!

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A group of backpackers walk single file along a trail with mountains ahead.
Gaia GPSHow-ToOut and Back Podcast

Out and Back: How to Train for Hiking Season

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

How to listen: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic | Breaker | Castbox

Get up to 50% off
Gaia GPS

The days are getting longer and warmer — hiking season is well on its way! But for many of us, nearby trails are still covered in ice and snow. And for many more, we’re cooped up in the city or live in geographical regions as flat as a pancake. How can we gear up for summer adventures?

Personal trainer Billy Gawron of Backcountry Fitness is here with answers. This week on Out and Back, Shanty and Abby chat with Billy about training for hiking, backpacking, and thru-hiking season. Billy equates getting in shape to building a house. You have to start with the foundation.

“If you try to build a house on top of a really crappy foundation, the house is not gonna last very long,” Billy says. “So you want to make sure that you solidify not only your core stability, but your stability around all your joints.”

Whether you’ve spent a little too much time on the couch this winter, are confined to the city, or don’t have access to a gym right now, don’t worry! Billy is here to walk you through how you can build a strong body and mind right at home. Billy has backpacked all over the world and specializes in training his clients to get ready for all types of backcountry adventures. He delivers his keen insight into training for big mountain days while confined to small spaces and flat, concrete cities.

Billy shares the number one thing we should all start working on right now and gives us the key to balancing strength work with endurance training. He breaks down some pervasive myths about training, including if you actually need to train at all.

Billy answers the most pressing hiker questions, like how to train your feet and ankles to withstand long days with a heavy pack, how to prevent pesky and debilitating knee pain, and how to prepare for altitude while at sea level.

If you’re dreaming up some big plans for the summer, you won’t want to miss this episode. In the meantime, check out Backcountry Fitness on the web, where you can find free training plans and can hire Billy as a coach, and follow Backcountry on Instagram for daily training tips.

Two hikers smile while standing in front of a lake with mountains in the distance.

Episode Highlights:

4:25: Meet Billy Gawron, personal trainer and founder of Backcountry Fitness.

5:50: Billy shares the story of the client who inspired him to specialize in getting people ready for backcountry adventures.

8:30: Billy and his fiancée have hiked and backpacked all around the world together.

10:20: Shanty tells the most ridiculous story that has been told on this podcast to date.

12:00: Billy resolves some of the biggest myths in hiking, backpacking, and thru-hiking.

20:00: How you can start preparing for hiking/backpacking season from right at home, right now. (Hint: we’re starting with the core.)

22:20: Do you sit all day? If so, you are a basket of injuries waiting to happen. Billy is here to help.

29:00: Shanty is eager to hit the gym with the heavy weights. Billy weighs in….

31:05: How many days do you have to train? How do you balance strength and cardio?

32:35: What kind of cardio is best to get ready for hiking season, especially if you’re confined to the city or somewhere flat? How hard should you work?

36:19: Billy explains why doing a bunch of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is not necessarily going to help you for your summer adventures.

37:35: What’s the minimum amount of time you need to devote to a workout?

40:50: When it comes to strength training, more reps at lower weight is going to help you out more than single max reps.

42:40: Billy explains why he loves SPT (Sustained Push Training). It combines cardio endurance and strength work all into one.

46:30: Knee pain? The problem most likely is not your knee.

49:20: Billy, who used to work at a running speciality store, advises on the best shoes for training, running, and hiking.

52:00: Learn how to become comfortable being uncomfortable now, so you’re mentally ready for your adventures later.

56:30: Can you prep for your altitude adventures from sea level?

1:01:45: Want more tips from Billy? Check out his app.

1:03:00: Billy is training for his honey moon — hiking Kilimanjaro with his fiancée!

Last episode: Adrian Ballinger

Adrien smiles while on top of a snowy mountain. He's got his arms raised and is holding an ice axe in one hand.

Alpinist Adrian Ballinger has made a career of climbing the Himalaya’s 8,000-meter giants. Since 2008, he’s summited Mount Everest eight times, including once without supplemental oxygen. But perhaps the biggest hurdle Ballinger has surmounted has been overcoming family and societal pressure to live a life outside of what’s true to himself.

In the last episode of the Out and Back, Ballinger takes hosts Shanty and Mary all the way back to his unusual foray into the outdoors growing up in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Though he fell in love with climbing, nobody ever thought he’d make a job of it. In fact, an undercurrent of pressure to study medicine swept him away to college. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and was accepted to Georgetown’s medical school. But Ballinger deferred enrollment to indulge in one glorious gap year to “get the mountains out of his system.” One year turned into two years, and, well, let’s just say his parents weren’t impressed. Decades later, and well into his 40s, Ballinger is still scrambling up mountains on his “break” between undergraduate and graduate school.

In this fun and lighthearted chat, Ballinger speaks openly about the challenges and realities of guiding clients up the world’s highest mountains. Ballinger takes us to that fateful encounter on the side of Mount Everest, where he met the love of his life, professional climber Emily Harrington.

Tune in to learn more about how you can explore the mountains with Ballinger’s company Alpenglow Expeditions. Follow Ballinger on his Instagram page and watch the couple’s YouTube channel DangerstikTV for some real-life Adrian/Emily entertainment. Watch Breathtaking, a documentary about Ballinger’s climb on K2 without supplemental oxygen.

Next episode: Vasu Sojitra

A skier with a leg difference sends it down a mountain. He is using outrigers and one ski.

Growing up in India and Connecticut, Vasu Sojitra’s ascendence to becoming a professional skier may seem unlikely. Not to mention that he was born to Indian immigrants who did not understand the sport. And that he has a lower leg difference, and taught himself to ski with one leg and no prosthetic.

But Vasu doesn’t lean into excuses. In fact, he embraces who he is.

“That’s the thing about disability culture — we are one of the most resilient communities on this planet, which is awesome to be a part of,” Vasu says on Out and Back. “People think we’re fragile. People think you have to tiptoe around our disability.No. We are kicking ass.”

On the next episode of Out and Back, Vasu tells his story from having his leg amputated at nine months old to climbing peaks like the Grand Teton and backcountry skiing Montana’s Beartooth and Bridger mountain ranges. He’s even landed a 720 on skis, which is a first for an adaptive skier.

Vasu shares how he uses his engineering degree to problem solve equipment strategies for skinning up the mountain with one ski. And he explains how he brings an intersectional framework to the outdoors to lift those up around him and to help make these sports more inclusive to everyone.

You can follow Vasu’s adventures and advocacy on Instagram. Check out his newest venture, Inclusive Outdoors Project. And you can learn more about Vasu on his website.

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Two snowmobilers ride across a vast snow plain in the distance, in front of a glowing sunset over snowy mountains.
Gaia GPSHow-To

How to Use Gaia GPS for Snowmobiling

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

Riding a sled allows you to cover a lot of terrain in a short amount of time. But this liberating, rewarding, and high-speed access comes with a price — it’s easy to get lost, or worse. Plus, there may be hidden trails and zones out your front door that you’ve never discovered. That’s where navigation tools come into play.

“I have different strategies for navigating depending on the ride, area, and the crew I’m with,” says Aleah Hockin, lead guide and coach at Savage Sisters Snow, a snowmobile guide company in Craig and Slater, CO. “It’s very important to trust the crew you have when riding in the backcountry. As a rider it’s important you know the strengths and limitations of who you’re with as well as your own.”

Your phone does not replace riding with a knowledgeable crew, taking an avalanche course if you live in avalanche-prone terrain, and just plain experience. But your phone can provide an invaluable supplementary tool, says Russel Mussio, president of Canada’s Backroad Mapbooks. Find new trails, plan routes, and stay found using Gaia GPS in conjunction with some tried and trusted navigation staples. Here’s how.

Plan Your Trip

A single file line of sledders ride over a snowy plain with small mountains in the distance.

A little advanced planning from the comfort of your couch can greatly enhance your trip. You just need your computer or your phone. If you’re on your computer, go to gaiagps.com/map. If you’re using your phone, open the Gaia GPS app.

Scout out the area

Hockin recommends looking at potential sled zones using satellite maps to examine tree cover. Check out the full catalog of snowmobile maps below to get a sense of which maps can help you plan your next trip. Turn on public tracks to see where other sledders have travelled.

Map a Route

You can use Gaia GPS to map out a route right on the web or in the app. Save the route to your phone, and follow it along as you go. Many local snowmobile club websites have GPX files of routes that are free to download and use. You can import these established routes directly into the Gaia GPS app.

Mussio cautions that sometimes it doesn’t make sense to map out a precise route beforehand. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t examine a map before you head out the door.

“For route planning, I personally plan the trailhead and destination — and ideally an alternate or two,” Mussio says. “Typically when riding, things change depending on conditions and or what is in the field. What looks good on the map might not be the case on the ground so it is nice to be prepared for flexibility or options.”

Download your maps

Download the maps for the zone you plan to visit before you leave home. That way you can access them in the backcountry, regardless of whether you leave cell service.

Gaia GPS Maps for Sledding

Gaia GPS offers multiple maps to help you find new zones, keep tabs on weather conditions, and make your way home safely.

Navigation Maps

Gaia Topo

Screenshot of Gaia Topo.


Topo maps are the most useful map layers for sledders, according to Hockin. Easy to read and tiny to download, Gaia Topo may be the most valuable map in a sledder’s pocket. It’s also free to use. This map shows most Forest Service roads and 4WD trails, as well as points of interest, land ownership designation, and many more details that make it easy to discover landmarks to see and places to stop along your adventure.

Quickly get a sense of elevation profiles thanks to blended contour line styling. Zoom in to get exactly the level of detail your planning requires. And download large swaths of land — even your entire state — thanks to its efficient file size.

USGS Topo

Screenshot of USGS Topo.

The USGS Topo layer includes the official topo maps from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). As another detailed topographical map layer, it can be used in conjunction with the Gaia Topo layer to compare trails and points of interest.

World Imagery

Screenshot of World Imagery map.


Seeing a photographic overview of an area provides key details that topo maps leave out. This satellite imagery layer helps you identify ridges and drainages, open plains and densely packed glades.

Wilderness Areas (US)

Screenshot of Wilderness Area map.


In the US, motorized travel is not permitted within designated wilderness areas. Use the Wilderness Areas (US) overlay to help ensure you stay where sledding is permitted — and avoid a pricey fine.

Trail Maps

BRMB Snowmobile Trails

Screenshot of BRMB layer.


If you’re in Canada, you’re in luck! We’ve partnered with the illustrious Backroad Mapbooks to bring you an overlay containing 90,000 miles of snowmobile trails across Canada, from BC to Newfoundland. Trails are color-coded to distinguish from Multi-Use and ATV trails, and easy identify which trail you’re examining thanks to bold trail names right on the trail itself. Pair this overlay with your favorite base map.

USFS Roads and Trails

Screenshot of USFS roads and trails map.


See maintained routes, 4×4 trails, backroads, and obscure paths across U.S. national forests and grasslands using the United States Forest Service (USFS) Roads and Trails layer.

USFS Roads and Trails often displays more roads and trails than any other map. Use this layer to find information on the road surface, maintenance level, and trail width. Plus, color-coded trails indicate which activities — including motorized sports — are allowed on each trail. Just tap or click a trail to learn more details.

USFS 2016

Screenshot of USFS 2016.


The USFS 2016 layer contains full, detailed topographic coverage of all 172 national forests and grasslands in the US. Easy-to-read Forest Service road numbers make route planning simple. This up-to-date, rasterized map available from the US Forest Service includes labeled trails, roads, and vegetation shading.

MVUM

Screenshot of MVUM.


The Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM) layer uses data from the Forest Service to highlight vehicle-accessible roads. Use this map in conjunction with the USFS Roads and Trails layer to see whether sleds are allowed on a road or trail. MVUM gives information on seasonality, usage, and the condition of various roads. Just tap or click on the route to learn more.

The MVUM layer typically contains the most up-to-date information on which Forest Service roads are open to motor vehicles, which helps ensure you don’t break any rules or sled where you aren’t supposed to. Not all USFS lands have an MVUM, but this map data serves as the legal standard for trail access. Modeled off of paper maps MVUM makes it easy to compare and switch seamlessly between paper and digital.

Safety and Weather Maps

Snow Stations (Daily)

Screenshot of Snow Stations Daily map.


Check the Snow Stations (Daily) map before your trip to get a daily report on the amount of new snow that has fallen in the last 24 hours and what the average water density reading is for the new snow in the area you plan to visit.

Snow Forecast Overlays — Available in 24-Hour, 48-Hour, and 72-Hour Views

Screenshot of Snow Forecast 24-hour) overlay.


Precipitation forecasts give some indication of general weather patterns. Use the Snow Forecast Overlays to get a sense of snow conditions, and any weather moving in that may impact visibility and safety. Mussio likes to use this layer to get a sense of when he can expect a powder day.

Slope Angle

Screenshot of the Slope Angle map.


Sticking to low-angle terrain can help you stay safe in the backcountry. Over 90% of avalanches start on slopes between 30° and 45° degrees. A 30° slope compares to a blue run at a ski area, while 45° slopes are found on double black diamond runs. In other words, prime skiing terrain is also prime avalanche terrain. One key detail is that most avalanches start on slopes between 30° and 45° degrees. Avalanches can be triggered remotely and run into lower angle terrain, so it is important to have a thorough understanding of runout zones.

The Slope Angle layer can help you identify avalanche terrain. Slopes are color-coded with their approximate steepness, with orange and red denoting terrain between 30 and 45 degrees. Keep in mind that this map layer is only a “depiction of reality.” The map will differ from the actual terrain. Avalanche start zones like convexities or small pockets of steepness can escape detection. The error can be as high as 4 degrees. The difference between 26 and 30 degrees, or 30 and 34 degrees, can be a significant increase in risk exposure – check out this distribution chart of avalanches by start zone slope angle.

Slope angle maps have limitations and provide a general sense of terrain steepness and often do not depict micro-terrain features on the map. Always use an inclinometer tool to measure slope angles in the field to get an accurate picture of the terrain.

Avalanche Forecast


From Colorado to Utah, Montana to Alaska, avalanche centers provide detailed local forecasts that outline aspects of concern and relevant avalanche problems. When you are online or within cell range, you can use the Avalanche Forecast layer to access the detailed local forecast. Pull up the map to see what the danger rating is for the area you plan to ride that day. From the Avalanche Forecast map, click on the shaded area to be able to access a link that will take you directly to the local avalanche center’s website for more information. Be sure to read the entire forecast from the avalanche center from the link provided on the map. And remember, this layer and all avalanche maps are a supplement (not a substitute) for taking an avalanche course and bringing avalanche gear.

Cell Phone Use Coverage

Screenshot of Cell Phone Coverage map.

The Cell Phone Use Coverage maps provide insight into whether you can access the internet or send texts while you’re out in the backcountry. Track where you can find cell service anywhere in the United States including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Find out where your network provides 3G and LTE coverage for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Southern Linc carriers.

Navigate

Hockin rides through deep powder.

In addition to helping you find new zones, maps can help you strategically cover new ground once you’re out there.

“I’m a firm believer in exploring and doing so safely,” Hockin says. “When exploring a new drainage I try to tackle it from the bottom and work my way up then I know if it’s safe to drop in it next time we ride that zone. This keeps you from cliffing out or getting into a steep narrow drainage that may not be rideable and if you’re too steep to climb back out this can lead to trouble.”

Use topo and satellite imagery to help get a sense of how to explore a new drainage. Use the weather, avalanche, and slope angle overlays to help stay out of avalanche terrain.

While Gaia GPS can help you navigate, Hockin says to always bring a paper map and compass as a backup. You never know when your phone may shut down due to the cold. (Although there are steps you can take to help prevent that from happening.)

In addition, some snowmobile organizations, like Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, provide extensive paper maps showing their extensive maintained and groomed trail systems. However, many of these maps do not indicate mile markers. Use Gaia GPS in conjunction with your papers maps to measure your distance to your next destination, and see other sled-friendly trails not shown on the paper map.

Stay Found

Whether weather moves in or it gets dark, even the simplest routes can become difficult to follow once the visibility drops.

“Knowing your general location using land marks such as peaks and parks helps keep you moving in the right direction,” Hockin says. “That said, storms move in quick in the mountains and you can’t always rely on visuals to know where you are. Storms can also create anxiety and prevent you from keeping a clear head. This is where technology takes over and if working properly can get you out of the woods safe and sound during a storm.”

Gaia GPS offers a few tools to help you stay found and find your way home.

Locate and orient yourself on the map

Easy and quickly identify where you are on the map thanks to Gaia GPS’s location tracking. Simply open the app, and you’ll see your location as a gold arrow on the map. The arrow even indicates which direction your phone is facing, so you can get your cardinal bearings. Tap the circle in the very center at the top of the screen to center your location on the map. Hockin says being able to see her location on the map is a lifesaver for her when she’s out exploring or guiding trips. Here’s how to find your place and orient yourself on the map.

Record your tracks

In addition to seeing your place in the map, you can examine a bread crumb trail of the exact terrain you’ve covered. Simply start recording your tracks before you leave from the trailhead. That way if you get lost, you can turn around and retrace your path home.

Recording your tracks also creates a record of your trip, so you can find those zones again. This is one of Hockin’s favorite features. Simply save your tracks when you’re done with your trip, and you’ll be able to see the tracks directly in your Gaia GPS app.

To record your tracks, tap the circle with the “+” sign on the top right of the app. Select “Record a Track” from the menu. Don’t forget to end your track when you’re done. Save your tracks in your Gaia GPS account so you can examine your trip from home, and go back to that same zone again. Here are detailed step-by-step directions to recording your tracks.

Waypoints

Flag key turns, land marks, and other locations you want to remember by dropping a waypoint directly into the map. Press the circle with the “+” sign on the top right of the app and select “Add Waypoint” to choose a location on the map to flag, or “Add Waypoint (My Location”) to drop a pin at your exact current spot. Head over here for more information on creating and editing waypoints.

Practice

A snowmobiler looks off at the sunset over the mountains.

Your tools are only as good as you are at using them. Nothing replaces practicing navigating with Gaia GPS and paper maps.

“Staying safe is a combination of knowing your strengths along with your weaknesses and not over riding your limitations both in riding abilities and navigating abilities,” Hockin says. “Pushing your comfort zone is essential for becoming a better rider and navigator but should be done in a safe manner with the ego in check.”

Pay attention to the terrain, the conditions, and your surroundings. And remember that the landscape will always be there. Stay balanced while you BRAAAP!

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An ice climber hangs from an overhanging rock wall with a frozen waterfall beside him.
Gaia GPSOut and Back Podcast

Climber and Entrepreneur Matt Segal on Finding Balance

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

How to listen: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic | Breaker | Castbox

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Rising to the top of any field requires relentless dedication. But for some people, that singular focus can actually be their downfall. Professional rock climber Matt Segal knew that climbing would never be enough for him. Plus, he was fed up with drinking bad coffee on climbing expeditions. Segal founded Alpine Start, an artisan instant coffee company, while continuing to raise the bar in climbing.

In this episode of the Out and Back podcast, Abby and Shanty catch up Segal to learn how he redefines what’s possible in climbing and in juggling sport with running a business. Segal grew up in Miami, Florida, not exactly the climbing mecca of America. But a chance encounter with the sport got him hooked immediately. Segal dove head first in the indoor rock climbing competition scene, where he excelled on the national and international circuit.

Segal wound up in Boulder, Colorado for college and to continue his climbing career. But Boulder exposed him to the allure of the granite and sandstone rock faces out his front door. Segal found himself veering away from the plastic holds and gymnast moves of competition climbing, and to insanely challenging routes outside. Segal quickly established himself as one of the best trad and sport climbers in the country, setting first ascents on the Iron Monkey (5.14) in Eldorado Canyon, the Orangutan Overhang (5.14-) in Independence Pass, CO and Air China (5.13d R) in Liming, China.

Simply excelling at sport was never enough for Segal. He combined his climbing expertise with his degrees in Psychology and Religious Studies with an emphasis in Tibetan Buddhism to assist on archaeological explorations of 800-year-old man-made caves high on rock faces in the Mustang region of Nepal.

Fed up with drinking bad instant coffee on expeditions, Segal found a stroke of inspiration on a climbing trip to Canada.

“There’s going to be a time when climbing doesn’t really work for me,” Segal recalls on the podcast. “Some of the allure with climbing was starting to fade a little bit. I was starting to get into other sports like paragliding. I just had this idea of, here I am, it’s a rainy day in my tent. I was drinking Starbucks Via. I was like, man, this kind of sucks. And I hate Starbucks. There’s nobody making a good instant coffee out there. Part of me was like, well, if I could make an instant coffee that even tastes just as good as Starbucks, I’m way cooler than Starbucks. Maybe people would buy it.”

Segal came home and started his own instant coffee company — Alpine Start. In 2017, Alpine Start was just getting off the ground when Segal suffered a near-death paragliding accident. Shattering his body only motivated him further to make the best coffee possible — and to make coffee with benefits that go beyond a simple caffeine jolt. Segal experimented on himself and his friends, adding supplements to coffee concoctions to see what worked. All of that led to Alpine Start’s newest venture, a “Benefits” line that tastes so good and is so good for you that you’ll want to drink it at home.

Whether you live at the crag or seek insight into pursuing your dreams, you’re not going to want to miss this episode. Tune in to feed off of Segal’s passion for getting outside and protecting the places we love to play through his work with Protect Our Winters and 1% for the Planet. Learn how he balances life as an elite athlete with a thriving small business. Segal goes deep into the recesses of his mind after breaking nearly every bone in his body, while simultaneously nursing a broken heart.

Keep up with Segal on Instagram. And check out Alpine Start’s Kickstarter campaign while it’s still live throughout February. You can also read more about Segal’s Nat Geo trips to the Mustang Valley here and watch the documentary here.

Segal is hanging onto a rock wall with one hand. His feet are placed on the rock below, and his other hand is pulling the rope attaching him to the wall up to clip it in higher. Snowy plains extend behind.
Photo: Ian Glass

Episode Highlights:

2:55: Segal has been climbing for over 20 years.
3:20: Segal got his start climbing in the unlikely place of Miami, Florida.
5:50: Segal moves to Boulder, Colorado, to pursue his competition climbing career and to go to college.
6:30: The allure of the rock proves too great in Boulder. Segal shifts from indoor competition climbing to outdoor sport and trad climbing.
11:00: You might assume that going to college in Boulder means Segal went to CU Boulder…wrong! Segal talks about his unique education.
15:30: Segal discusses his mindfulness practice in climbing.
17:15: Segal discusses his two National Geographic expeditions to the Mustang region of Nepal, where he helped archeologists access otherwise unattainable sites.
29:00: Segal talks about how he went about sending the first ascent on Iron Monkey, one of the hardest trad climbs in Colorado at the time. How do you go about attempting something that’s never been done before? Segal shares.
34:00: Segal shares his epiphany that led him to found Alpine Start, an artisanal instant coffee company.
37:31: Segal starts paragliding…why?!
38:35: Segal breaks numerous bones in a paragliding accident. His ice axe goes through his calf. He’s on the mountain for eight hours before he can be airlifted to the hospital.
41:10: The best alpinists have the worst memories.
42:20: Segal’s broken, goes through a really hard breakup, and a friend dies. How do you heal from all of that?
43:45: Throwing himself in Alpine Start helped Segal heal and catapulted the company.
47:20: Segal tried a lot of really bad coffee in his quest to find and make instant coffee that actually tastes good.
49:00: Segal started experimenting with functional ingredients as he was recovering from his accident. Now Alpine Start is making coffee and matcha with these beneficial ingredients in them.
55:30: Segal discusses how he got into environmental activism with Protect Our Winters and 1% for the Planet.
59:00: Segal runs through a typical week and how he juggles training as a professional athlete with working on Alpine Start.

Next Episode: Professional Mountain Climber Adrian Ballinger Finds his Limits and Love on Mount Everest

Adrian stands on top of a mountain holding an ice axe in one hand and his gloved fist raised in the other. His skis are on his back. He's wearing sunglasses, a headlamp, and a helmet. Snowcapped speaks are all around him in the background.

Alpinist Adrian Ballinger has made a career of climbing the Himalaya’s 8,000-meter giants. Since 2008, he’s summited Mount Everest eight times, including once without supplemental oxygen. He has also climbed other lofty and daring peaks in the region like K2, Lhotse, Cho Oyu, and Manaslu. But perhaps the biggest hurdle Ballinger has surmounted has been overcoming family and societal pressure to live a life outside that’s true to himself.

In the next Out and Back episode, Ballinger takes hosts Mary and Shanty all the way back to his first experiences with the outdoors. Ballinger didn’t grow up in an outdoorsy family, but learned to ski when his family moved to Massachusetts and lived across the street from the local ski hill. A friend’s dad offered to teach him to rock climb. His parents didn’t approve of this new sport, but Ballinger found a quiet ally in his mother.

“My mom had this great dichotomy. On one side, if I was going rock climbing, I couldn’t tell her. I had to tell her I was going to the library. But she knew that meant I was going climbing. But she didn’t want to talk about it,” Ballinger explains on the Out and Back podcast. “But every couple of weeks or once a month, another cam would show up my bed. She had gone to the local Eastern Mountaineering Sports shop to figure out what I needed and she helped build my rack, but it was never something that she wanted credit for or necessarily encouraged out loud. It was pretty cool.”

While Ballinger’s love for the mountains grew deeper, he also felt an obligation to steer toward a professional career. Ballinger earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and was accepted to medical school the following year. But he deferred enrollment to indulge in one glorious gap year to “get the mountains out of his system.” One year turned into two years, and, well, let’s just say his parents weren’t impressed. Decades later, Ballinger is still out there on his gap year.

Ballinger speaks openly about the challenges of guiding on the world’s highest mountains, how terrible it feels to summit Mount Everest without oxygen support, and how he met the love of his life, professional climber Emily Harrington, in a fateful encounter on Mount Everest. Ballinger reminds us that going against the grain can often lead to true happiness within. Check out the guided trips with Ballinger’s company Alpenglow Expeditions. Follow Ballinger on his Instagram page.

Last Episode: Camping and Overlanding Save Sonya and Necota Staples

A man and a woman are sitting on the hood of their truck, smiling and looking at each other with love.

This special episode of the Out and Back podcast shares the story of Sonya and Necota Staples and how the outdoors saved their marriage. In fact, they’ve grown into accomplished overlanders who adventure off-road around America and beyond.

Ten years after they said “I do,” Sonya and Necota Staples reached the brink of divorce. They had gotten so caught up in the business of living that they drifted apart. That’s when these city dwellers tried something new: camping. That one trip changed the trajectory of their lives.

Tune in to learn how camping and overlanding rejuvenated the Staples’ marriage. The Staples share their story openly and honestly, with humor and insight along the way. They talk about what inspired them to start the Youtube channel and social media presence StaplesInTents. And they get into why they swapped out their BMWs for a Land Cruiser and adventures off road. In fact, the Staples have gone overlanding all over the world, including overseas to Columbia.

Check out Sonya and Necota’s blog StaplesInTents, YouTube channel, and Instagram. And connect with their other Instagram handle, BlackPeopleOffroad.

Meet the Hosts

Andrew “Shanty” Baldwin

In 2019, host Andrew Baldwin completed a southbound thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. After five months on the trail, Baldwin returned home to pursue a career in voice acting. A friend of the Gaia GPS company, Baldwin was a natural choice for hosting the Out and Back podcast.

In each Out and Back episode, Shanty strives to bring you conversations with people who spend an extraordinary amount of time outdoors. Listen in as Shanty taps into each backcountry expert’s superpower so that you can take their knowledge and experience with you on your next adventure.

Mary Cochenour

Mary smiles while lying down and resting her head on a rock. She's wearing a purple jacket, gloves, and a black buff around her ears.

Mary is the Out and Back podcast producer and a writer and editor at Gaia GPS. Before joining Gaia GPS, Mary worked as a lawyer, newspaper journalist, ski patroller, Grand Canyon river guide, and USFS wilderness ranger.

When she is not in the office, Mary works as a guide for Andrew Skurka Adventures in wild places around the west, like Rocky Mountain National Park, Yosemite, and the Brooks Range in Alaska. See some of Mary’s adventures on Instagram. Also, read her tips on how to plan your first solo backpacking trip and listen to her scary story about being stalked in the wilderness by a sketchy man.

Abby Levene

Abby smiles through a face caked in snow and ice.

When she’s not busy writing and editing content for Gaia GPS, Abby Levene can be found trail running, biking, and skiing around her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. In 2017, Abby broke her wrist eight miles into her second ultra. She went on to win the race, and has been hooked on the sport since. She’s passionate about using her graduate education in environmental journalism and her love for playing outside to tell stories about the issues, people, and places of the outdoors.

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Sonya and Necota smile while standing on a large rocky plain. They are wearing matching shirts that say "camping, overlanding, rebelling, biking, diversify, hiking, rafting, kayaking, climbing."
Gaia GPSOut and Back Podcast

Camping and Overlanding Save Atlanta Couple’s Marriage

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

How to listen: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic | Breaker | Castbox

Get up to 50% off
Gaia GPS

After 10 years of marriage, Sonya and Necota Staples reached the brink of divorce. They had gotten so caught up in the business of living that they drifted apart. That’s when these city dwellers tried something new: camping. That one trip changed the trajectory of their lives.

In this special Valentine’s Day episode of the Out and Back podcast, Abby and Shanty bring you the story of Sonya and Necota Staples and how the outdoors saved their marriage.

Sonya and Necota met as physics majors at North Carolina A&T, a historically Black college in Greensboro, North Carolina. They bonded while studying together outside. Study dates eventually led to picnic dates, walks through botanical gardens and trips to foreign places. Their adventures didn’t always go as planned, but they continued to enjoy the peace and serenity of experiencing the outdoors together.

The Staples got married and settled down in Atlanta. Here, the allures of the city won out over nature. As they settled into their prescribed roles, their relationship started to crumble. They continued to struggle until their marriage counselor gave them one crucial piece of advice — say yes to each other.

Saying yes led to their first camping trip together. Things got off to a rough start. But by the end of the weekend, they were hooked.

“It was new territory for us to be outside and have to figure it out,” Sonya says. “So it did give us more space to say, you know, no one is an expert here. And we really learned what the other person’s strengths and weaknesses were.”

Tune in to learn how camping and overlanding rejuvenated the Staples’ marriage. The Staples share their story openly and honestly, with humor and insight along the way. They talk about what inspired them to start the Youtube channel and social media presence StaplesInTents. And they get into why they swapped out their BMWs for a Land Cruiser and adventures off road. In fact, the Staples have gone overlanding all over the world, including overseas to Columbia.

Check out Sonya and Necota’s blog StaplesInTents, YouTube channel, and Instagram. And connect with their other Instagram handle, BlackPeopleOffroad.

Necota and Sonya smile at each other while Necota sits in the back of their car and Sonya sits in a camping chair behind the car.

Episode Highlights:

2:30: Meet Sonya and Necota Staples.
3:25: Sonya and Necota met as physics major at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black college in Greensboro. It wasn’t love at first sight.
5:20: Sonya and Necota started studying together outside. Eventually their friendship leads to more.
8:40: Sonya and Necota strengthened their relationship hiking the gorges in upstate New York.
10:00: Sonya and Necota tell their crazy engagement story. It did not go according to plan.
14:45: Sonya and Necota move to Atlanta, and they settle into city life.
15:30: Sometimes, Sonya went camping with her best friend Teressa. Necota never went.
17:00: Sonya and Necota’s marriage starts to unravel.
18:30: The Staples start marriage counseling. Things don’t improve, until their marriage counselor gives them one key piece of advice.
19:40: The marriage counselor’s advice came at the perfect time. The Staples go camping for the first time together.
20:30: The camping trip starts off very poorly.
21:50: Sonya says something to Necota that flips a switch in his head. He makes the choice to be happy.
23:00: Necota shares why a campfire is so important to him.
23:45: The Staples go all-in on camping.
25:00: How camping and connecting with nature healed the Staples’ marriage.
30:00: The Staple’s start their blog, Youtube channel and social media account StaplesInTents. Tune in to find out why.
32:33: How the Staples’ love for shopping intersections with their passions for camping and overlanding.
34:00: Sonya and Necota purchase their first offroad vehicle, Frank the Tank, and go on their first overlanding trip to Tray Mountain. A few things go wrong.
35:50: The Staples become seasoned overlanders, overlanding across the US and in South America.
37:00: The Staples start their second social media account, BlackPeopleOffroad.
40:00: 2020 got off to a rough start for the Staples, even before the pandemic made its way to the US. They turn to camping and overlanding, and realize how far they’ve come.

Last Episode: Luke Smithwick Brings Himalayan Backcountry Skiing into Focus

Smithwick skis down a steep wind-swept slope. Tall jagged peaks are visible above clouds of snow in the background.

Tune into the last episode of Out and Back to get the inside scoop on the next great backcountry skiing destination: the Himalayas. Shanty and Mary catch up with Luke Smithwick, one of the most prolific ski mountaineers and guides in the world. Smithwick is 200 lines deep into his Himalaya 500 skiing project — a mission to highlight 500 of the most unique and beautiful backcountry runs on the world’s tallest mountains. With more than 75 Himalayan mountain expeditions to his name, Smithwick unravels the mystery of skiing in places like Tibet, India, and Nepal.

“It’s truly a Wild West. It’s just very remote. We take several flights to get out there from Katmandu and then we go with horses up to the snow line,” Smithwick says of one of his expeditions in the Himalaya. “The skiing starts at around 11,000 feet and goes up to 18,000 or 19,000 feet. The snow is really good. And I just love the people out there. It’s like a different world.”

Smithwick tells us why the Himalayas could become the next all-time backcountry ski destination. Tune in to find out what it takes to get on one of Smithwick’s guided Himalayan ski mountaineering trips, learn about his mission to ski 500 classic Himalayan descents, and get his take on the best zones in this colossal mountain range.

Learn more about Smithwick on his personal Instagram page or his Himalaya 500 page. Check out all the 2021 skiing and climbing expeditions that Smithwick plans to offer through his company Himalaya Alpine Guides.

Next Episode: Climber and Entrepreneur Matt Segal on Finding Balance

Matt hangs from a rock wall with the snowy Colorado plains in the background. He's lead climbing the route, with one hand hanging onto the wall and the other hand holding the rope.
Photo: Ian Glass

In the next episode of the Out and Back podcast, Abby and Shanty catch up with professional rock climber and business owner, Matt Segal. After moving to Boulder, Colorado, for college, Segal quickly established himself as one of the best trad and sport climbers in the country. He sent first ascents on the Iron Monkey (5.14) in Eldorado Canyon, the Orangutan Overhang (5.14-) in Independence Pass, CO and Air China (5.13d R) in Liming, China.

But simply excelling at sport was never enough for Segal. He combined his climbing expertise with his degrees in Psychology and Religious Studies with an emphasis in Tibetan Buddhism to assist on an archaeological exploration of 800-year-old man made caves high on rock faces in the Mustang Region of Nepal.

Fed up with drinking crappy coffee on expeditions and with one eye always fixed on what’s next, Segal started his own instant coffee company — Alpine Start. In 2017, Alpine Start was just getting off the ground when Segal suffered a near-death paragliding accident. Shattering his body only motivated him further to make the best coffee possible. Segal experimented with medicinal herbs, plants, and vitamins during the healing process, inspiring him to create products that give you more than a caffeine jolt.

All of that led to Alpine Start’s newest venture: Coffee with Benefits and Matcha with Benefits.

You won’t want to miss this episode as Segal goes deep into the recesses of his mind after breaking nearly every bone in his body, while simultaneously nursing a broken heart. He also gets into how he combines his passion for the outdoors with a passion to protect these places he loves to play.

Keep up with Segal on Instagram. And check out Alpine Start’s Kickstarter campaign while it’s still live throughout February.

Meet the Hosts

Andrew “Shanty” Baldwin

In 2019, host Andrew Baldwin completed a southbound thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. After five months on the trail, Baldwin returned home to pursue a career in voice acting. A friend of the Gaia GPS company, Baldwin was a natural choice for hosting the Out and Back podcast.

In each Out and Back episode, Shanty strives to bring you conversations with people who spend an extraordinary amount of time outdoors. Listen in as Shanty taps into each backcountry expert’s superpower so that you can take their knowledge and experience with you on your next adventure.

Abby Levene

Abby smiles through a face caked in snow and ice.

When she’s not busy writing and editing content for Gaia GPS, Abby Levene can be found trail running, biking, and skiing around her hometown of Boulder, Colorado. In 2017, Abby broke her wrist eight miles into her second ultra. She went on to win the race, and has been hooked on the sport since. She’s passionate about using her graduate education in environmental journalism and her love for playing outside to tell stories about the issues, people, and places of the outdoors.

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A screenshot of the Historic Topo 1900 map on gaiagps.com shows archival map footage of Leadville, Colorado. There are multiple train lines running into the downtown.
Gaia GPSNew Maps

See a Snapshot of the Past With Historical Topo Maps

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

Go back in time with the newly updated Historic Topo maps. Join experts in using these maps to research areas steeped in history. See how your hometown has changed. Search for undiscovered historic sites. Or turn any hike into a walk through the past with this quilt of scanned archival maps. Enjoy higher image quality plus more coverage of the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico thanks to fresh updates to these layers.

Two map sources provide two different periods of history to examine: the Historic Topo 1900 shows digitized historic topographic maps from 1885 to 1915. The Historic Topo 1930 shows digitized USGS topo maps from around 1930.

Preserving the Past through Patented Digitization

Scientists, historians, environmentalists, genealogists, and others researching a particular area use these Historic Topo maps to aid in their work. Use these historic maps to see snapshots of the country’s physical and cultural features at a particular time. Or compare maps to see how an area has evolved.

These maps come from The National Map’s Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC). HTMC maps are published in Portable Document Format (PDF) with geospatial extensions (GeoPDF®), patented by TerraGo Technologies. In 2011, USGS released these high-resolution scans of more than 178,000 historical topographic maps of the United States. Now you can easily access them at home on gaiagps.com or in the field on your iOS or Android device.

Historic Topo 1900 shows the first telegraph line from Brest, France to Duxbury, MA.

Two Historic Topo Maps Document 1885-1930

Gaia GPS offers two topo map layers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Historic Topo 1900 shows digitized historic topographic maps from the continental United States and Hawaii from 1885 to 1915. Use this layer to get a sense of the US from the time the Dakotas were ratified as states (1889) to Arizona (1912). You can now enjoy roughly 150 million acres in new coverage.

Historic Topo 1930 shows digitized USGS topo maps for the continental United States and Hawaii, circa 1930. See what the US looked like at the dawn of the Great Depression. Explore 190 million acres in new coverage with this updated map.

Map scales for both layers include 24k, 31,680, 48k, 62,500, 96k, 125k, 192k, and 250k. When multiple maps covers the same area, maps get stacked upon each other until you zoom further into a particular area.

Take a Walk Through Time

A gif shows maps from 1900, 1930, and present day of San Fransisco. Notably, the Golden Gate bridge is missing from the first two.
Historic maps show how San Fransisco has changed over the past century.

Use the historical maps to see bygone features, and get to know an area in a whole new way.

  • Download a map for your area to see old rail road lines, street names, town lines.
  • Pair Historic Topo maps with your favorite base layer, such as the Gaia Topo, to get your bearings.
  • Toggle between current maps like Gaia Topo and these historic map layers to quickly compare and contrast how an area has changed.
  • Find overgrown stone foundations and settlements.
  • Discover old bridle and carriage paths, which may still be passable.
  • See old telegraph lines running under the ocean.
  • Use these maps to help on treasure hunts.

Remember to be mindful of who’s land you are on. You can check land ownership using the Public Land (US) and Private Land (US) map layers. You can also learn more about the history of an area by viewing the Native Lands map.

How to Get the Historical Topo Maps

The Historical Topo maps are available with a Premium Membership. To add these maps to your Gaia GPS app, open the app, tap the layers icon, and select “Add map layers.” Go to “United States” and select the Historical Topo 1900 and/or Historical Topo 1930.

To add these maps to your Gaia GPS account on the web, go to gaiagps.com/map. Click the layers icon, and select “Add map layers.” Go to “United States” and select the Historical Topo 1900 and/or Historical Topo 1930.

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map of ophir pass with trip stats on imac
Gaia GPSNew Features

Discover New Trails and Review Trip Stats with gaiagps.com Updates

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

The new sidebar on gaiagps.com puts all of your map data at your fingertips. Whether you’re building a new route, reviewing a trip, or exploring a new area, get a detailed snapshot of the item in a new information-rich sidebar next to the map. Start expanding your knowledge about nearby trails, recorded tracks, waypoints, and POIs with just one click.

View Elevation Profile, Vertical Gain, and More for Your Routes and Tracks

Planning an adventure and wondering how long it may take, or how strenuous it will be? The new sidebar shows detailed route statistics like distance, elevation gain, and an elevation profile to help with the planning process. Draw your own route or select a trail on the map to view the details in the sidebar. Check out these stats to get a comprehensive overview of what a route entails.

Record your tracks in the field and review your trip on gaiagps.com to see more details for recorded tracks than ever before. Click on the track on the map to view statistics that include minimum and maximum elevation, elapsed time, moving time, stopped time, average speed, moving speed, max speed, and pace.

Discover New Routes and Points of Interest

Explore new trails and established routes in a region with an expanded library of information and improved photo viewing. Click on an established route on the map and learn about its stats (similar to routes and tracks) plus whether it’s a loop or an out and back. Scroll down to see nearby routes in the area. You can even view a full screen slideshow of photos to get the best sense of what a route looks like.

Learn about POIs (points of interest) by clicking on them and looking to the sidebar. You’ll find information including the various modes of transportation you can use to access them, surface material, trail visibility, and difficulty to get there.

Drag Waypoints to Easily Edit Routes

Drop waypoints on the map to mark important features on the trip, like water sources, trail junctions, and campsites. The new sidebar lets you drag your waypoints even when you are in the middle of editing, making trip planning a snap.

A screenshot of gaiagps.com shows a water refill waypoint on the map and in the sidebar. You see the elevation of the waypoint, coordinates, and notes.

Quickly Export Routes and Get Directions

The new sidebar makes it easier than ever to share your routes with friends. Simply click on the route on the map, head over to the sidebar, and click “Export” to export your route as a GPX, KML, and GeoJSON file. You can also get driving directions to your route right from the sidebar. Just click “Driving Directions.”

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Angelou, two GYF interns, and another employee smile for the camera while standing in a line with their arms around each other's shoulders.
Gaia GPS

Greening Youth Foundation Empowers Youth and Enriches Outdoors

by Abby Levene
written by Abby Levene

When Angelou Ezeilo steps foot in Grand Teton National Park — her favorite park — her eyes fill with tears.

“They’re just so amazing and beautiful,” Ezeilo says. “And to think that some people can’t see it, can’t experience it — that’s why I do my work. I want to make sure that all people who want this experience have access, and all who want jobs in these places can get them.”

It may seem like many Americans have equal and ample access to outdoor spaces. But the fact is, hidden barriers hinder many groups of people from enjoying these places.

This unequal access extends to national parks. People of color are less likely to visit national parks than their white counterparts. People of color make up 42% of the US population, but only 23% of national park visitors. This disparity impacts Black Americans the most. While Black people make up 12% of the population, they compose only 4% of national park visitors.

Whiteness in America’s greenest places is even more pervasive among National Park Service staff. Less than 20% of the NPS’s 20,000 employees are people of color.

Numerous factors contribute to this rift. At surface level, you need to see it to be it. People don’t feel welcome when they don’t see others who look like them working at and visiting a place—including national parks.

These statistics played out in Ezeilo’s own career path. Feeling unwelcome in environmental, conservation, and outdoor industries, Ezeilo chose from one of the limited career paths she believed was open to her — the law. Yet it didn’t take long for Ezeilo to find herself working in conservation, anyway.

In 2007, Ezeilo paved a way forward. She founded Greening Youth Foundation, an international non-profit that creates ramp-ways for under-represented youth to enjoy nature and find careers in the outdoors.

What is Greening Youth Foundation?

A GYF intern stands behind a desk outside. There is a map behind her, and she talks with a group of visitors in front of her.

For 13 years, Greening Youth Foundation (GYF) has been changing the face of national parks. The foundation runs numerous programs in the US and West Africa that connect under-represented youth and young adults to the outdoors and careers in conservation. One of these programs places college students in internships with the National Park Service (NPS), Fish and Wildlife Service, and Forest Service. GYF works specifically with historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges to place about four dozen students in internships with the NPS every year.

Ezeilo understands the importance of creating these pathways from experience. She loved spending time outside since she was a kid, when she and her family escaped the concrete jungle of Jersey City, New Jersey, for the rugged mountains and clear lakes of upstate New York. These experiences inspired her to work in conservation.

But as a young Black girl, working in conservation or the environment felt inconceivable. She didn’t see anyone who looked like her in those fields.

“I wanted to make sure that there were no more young brown, Black, whatever, people who did not consider this fulfilling career that I had now, because of the way that they looked,” Ezeilo reflects now. “I wanted to make sure they had access to on-ramps to these careers.”

GYF’s 10-week internship introduces students to national parks and careers in conservation and environmental stewardship. Each student is assigned to a national park, where they work on projects on everything from cultural resources and interpretation to biological sciences, to engineering, to business. Interns learn about sustaining public lands and preserving natural resources for future generations.

Creating an Inclusive Culture from the Ground Up

A GYF intern looks through a camera set up on a tripod. She's sitting on a rocky outcropping, gazing at mountains before her.

Simply placing a student in a remote internship is not the measure of success, Ezeilo says. You can’t just hire a bunch of people of color and expect them to relocate and assimilate to a place like Jackson, WY. Just as visitors to national parks need to feel welcome, so do interns and staff. Where will they get their hair done? Do they have to go to the employee BBQ? Who can they talk with if they have a question?

GYF answers these questions and works collaboratively with NPS to weave best practices into the fabric of each internship. GYF provides a playbook to the partnering agencies. In addition to their NPS supervisors, GYF interns are matched with a GYF mentor who is there to field questions and assuage their concerns.

Interns are now so high in demand that GYF scores potential partnering agencies and only selects those who best meet its criteria. These metrics include a mentoring plan, work environment, and community diversity.

Ezeilo’s own life experience helped inform why creating these bridges and inclusive environments proves so important. She started her career as an attorney for the New Jersey State Agriculture and Development Committee. She drove her state-owned electric car across southern New Jersey to convince farmers on the brink of financial collapse to sell their land to the state to it could be preserved, rather than to land developers. Ezeilo found the work fulfilling, but also alienating.

“That was my entrée into this conservation field, and it blew me away,” Ezeilo says. “But it was just me as this little brown girl, and everyone else was the white majority. It was very lonely.”

Ezeilo wanted a mentor, and she wanted her own people to mentor. The lack of both left her feeling empty. She was tired of the disconnect she felt when she walked into meetings concerning the environment or farmland preservation and was the only Black person in the room. Rather than dwell on this frustration, Ezeilo reflected back on a lesson she learned in college.

“When I was an undergraduate student at Spelman College,” Ezeilo says, “the president of the college said, ‘I don’t want to hear you guys sitting around complaining about problems that you see. You need to actually effectuate the change you want to see in the real world.”

Greening Youth Foundation effectuates that change by bringing interns from a wide spectrum of backgrounds to communities where they were vastly underrepresented before. In the process, these interns, GYF, and the NPS are helping to change the tone of who is welcome to visit and work in outdoor spaces.

Getting to the Root of the Cause

A GYF intern smiles while sitting in a field and holding a bottle of anti-freeze. Snowcapped peaks rise into a cloudy sky behind her.

While the outdoors may blithely look neutral to non-marginalized communities, systemic racism and cultural assumptions permeate outdoor spaces. In fact, many national parks were created by forcibly driving Native Americans off the land for the purpose of providing an escape for wealthy, white city dwellers after the industrial revolution. Even as recent as the 1960s, many people of color were legally prohibited from attending or were segregated at public recreation sites, including national and state parks. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required equal access to public places, the vestiges of these discriminatory and exclusionary polices are still felt today.

Ezeilo felt this hostility at a young age. On one family trip to Seaside Heights, NJ, in 1977, a desk clerk turned Ezeilo’s family away from their ocean-front motel — despite the lit vacancy sign. For many Black and Indigenous people, fear and unrest of everything from a history of verbal abuse to violent and deadly encounters outdoors remains top of mind. In Central Park last May, Christian Cooper, an avid Black bird watcher, asked Amy Cooper, who is white, to leash her dog in an area where leashing is required. Amy Cooper called the police to accuse Christian Cooper of threatening her. A few months earlier, Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old Black man who was pursued and shot to death while out for a jog in his neighborhood. Many wilderness areas themselves remain tied to a history of people like the famed naturalist John Muir, who called Native Americans “dirty” and referred to Black people with racial slurs. This persistent discrimination shapes an understanding of nature and who should have access to it.

Ezeilo says she sees this unease every year with GYF’s new crop of interns. Parents worry about their children’s safety at national parks far-flung across the country. Furthermore, low-income Americans face additional challenges to recreating outdoors, such as lack of information about park resources, lack of transportation, and lack of additional income to travel. Since racial and ethnic socioeconomic discrepancies persist in the US, these issues disproportionately affect people of color.

GYF has created a system to support interns and the agencies to help interns feel welcome, included, and heard. This includes a buddy system of placing at least two students in remote parks so students don’t feel alone. Each intern also has a mentor back at GYF’s headquarters in Atlanta, with whom they can bounce questions, concerns, and thoughts.

Sustainable Diversity for Sustainable Parks

Angelou poses for the camera with five other NPS people. They are smiling and standing in a line in front of big rock walls in the background.

Diversifying the interns, staff, and visitors to national parks benefits everyone — including the parks themselves. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that people of color will make up the majority in America by 2044. The longevity of national parks and America’s outdoor spaces at large depend on this demographic shift.

The demand for GYF interns continue to grow because they enrich the agencies and communities they enter. GYF interns see things that others might not. When Shenise, an intern at Rock Creek Park, worked on an astronomy project called Night Skies in Africa, she noticed the kids grew sad after seeing it. She realized it was because the film limited history to talking about slavery. Shenise rewrote the script to go back before slavery, to African Kingdoms, and ended with the election of President Obama. The shift in viewers’ mood and interest was palpable.

A decade into sending interns to the NPS, GYF has come full-circle. Many former interns are now park rangers hiring new GYF interns. Ezeilo hopes this infiltration of Black and brown leaders will help build sustainable diversity within these organizations.

“Sustainable diversity is something that we talk about a lot,” Ezeilo says. “It’s not just plopping in a brown face here or there. It’s talking about how to literally embed diversity into a system that makes sense for everyone as mutually beneficial, and is also long-standing and sustainable.”

Of the 5,000 GYF interns up to 2018, 85% reported positive experiences. These empowering encounters have a ripple effect across populations. Providing internships for Black, brown, and Indigenous students with agencies like the NPS not only empowers those students to pursue careers in outdoor fields, it also assuages parental concerns about the outdoors and helps bring places like national parks within a community’s reach.

Even if interns don’t go into environmental fields, Ezeilo believes students take a lens of sustainability and environmental stewardship forward with them into the world.

“Once you’re connected, that extends to your local park, the lake down the street, the trees in your backyard,” Ezeilo writes in her book Engage, Protect, Connect: Empowering Diverse Youth As Environmental Leaders. “You want to protect them, preserve them. You care what happens in every corner of the Earth.”

At its core, GYF simultaneously opens doors that have previously been closed to many people of color, and also helps transform racially-charged places into positive spaces of inclusion and hope.

How You Can Get Involved

A GYF intern holds a clipboard in one hand and extends her other hand out. She stands in a sunny, manicured grassy park.

Follow along with Greening Youth interns and staff on GYF’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages. You can support GYF through its website. And to learn more about Ezeilo and her work at GYF, pick up a copy of her new book, Protect, Connect: Empowering Diverse Youth As Environmental Leaders.

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